


through the fire and through the flames

by mundaneanarchy



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Immortal vs. Mortal Characters, Immortality, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-17
Updated: 2013-08-17
Packaged: 2017-12-23 18:09:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/929516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mundaneanarchy/pseuds/mundaneanarchy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Night Vale residents are not immortal. Immortality implies imperviousness to death. Night Vale residents are fully capable of dying. Night Vale residents are under the same danger as the rest of the world of aging. The difference between those who live in Night Vale and others is that, without fatal interference, native Night Valians will go on living.</em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>--</p><p>Cecil is immortal. Carlos is not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	through the fire and through the flames

He should have known it would end this way.

He really, really should have seen this coming.

But then again, Cecil always did have trouble accepting consequences.

 

He has no memory of childhood. No parents to call and warn about an upcoming holiday; no old friends to reminisce about early experiences trapped in the library during the yearly Book Fair. His foremost memory is opening his eyes in his office, seated in a leather chair surrounded by state-of-the-art microphones and shadows surrounding him, all nodding in approval. He remembers sitting in his radio station, in his invisible prison-like tower, watching outside as the world around him evolved and he stayed the same. He would sit, cross-legged, staring out of an all glass window, wondering aloud when he would ever be able to go outside. _If_ he would ever be able to go outside.

 _Not now, Cecil_ , the non-sentient voices would whisper to him. _Soon. But not now_.

Years passed, and Cecil went unseen and yet saw everything. He watched wars and violence and love and revolution and growth occur all around him. His only company was the shadowy figures that hovered around him without warning.

One day, around 1492, while Cecil wept and wept nonstop for the slaughter of thousands of innocent Native Americans, a small basket appeared beside him, with a note reading _We cannot bear to see you this way_.

Cecil uncovered a small pink blanket and found a beautiful baby girl beside him. He smiled and said, “Hello, Josephine” without any conscious decision to say these words.

Cecil did not stop crying. But the company served to be a nice distraction.

 

Josephine ages far faster than Cecil had expected.

Cecil had not realized that time could be such a powerful factor to others. He watches Josephine transform as if in the blink of an eye to an innocent child to a wise, elderly woman, her spine bent and slightly deformed and her face changing, every wrinkle only serving to make Cecil adore her all the more.

Josephine lives on with him, protected by the shadows as well, aging each day a bit more.

Cecil remains exactly the same.

 

In 1920, a door appeared.

Cecil had sat staring at it for ages, until he felt himself nudged toward the direction of the door.

 _It’s time, Cecil_ , the voices whisper.

_It’s finally time._

The second Cecil takes his first steps outside, he feels the breeze and the sunshine and an array of scents hit him like bullets. He smiles and closes his eyes and feels the earth beneath his feet. He tightens his fingers into a fist and bites his lip and tries not to cry. He feels a nudging against his fist and reaches out to take Josephine’s hand.

“It’s time, Josie,” Cecil whispers, tears building in the corners of his eyes.

“I know it, Cecil,” she says, smiling as a beautiful town is built before her.

 

Night Vale residents are not immortal. Immortality implies imperviousness to death. Night Vale residents are fully capable of dying. Night Vale residents are under the same danger as the rest of the world of aging. The difference between those who live in Night Vale and others is that, without fatal interference, native Night Valians will go on living.

This being said, the average life expectancy in Night Vale is the lowest in the entire country. Fatal interference is nearly impossible to avoid.

There are two exceptions to this rule: Old Woman Josie and the Voice of Night Vale.

Old Woman Josie has her angels.

Cecil Baldwin has his voice.

 

(They both have each other.)

 

The day Carlos arrives in Night Vale, Cecil’s life begins.

An immortal life is barely a life at all.

But, unfortunately for Cecil, love is as much as a life as anything.

 

On their first date, Cecil watches how Carlos’s eyes sparkle and the way his mouth twitches when he discusses his work. He observes Carlo’s pinky which is bent slightly the wrong way from a playground incident when he was younger and the freckles that are sprayed across his cheeks despite his dark complexion. He watches the way Carlos’s face turns pink with excitement when he talks too quickly and doesn’t breathe often enough. He watches his dear, precious scientist nervously conduct experiments on the trees of the Night Vale Public Park as Cecil strokes his hand across Carlos’s cheek, gazing down at him with an abundance of emotion and adoration.

 

The first time Carlos fucks him, it’s hesitant and nervous and giggly and needy. Carlos swears in a language that Cecil does not understand against his skin and Cecil can’t remember how to breathe for a full minute afterwards. Carlos smokes a cigarette on his balcony and Cecil leans his head on his shoulder as they watch the sun set together at precisely the wrong time.

 

The first time Cecil fucks Carlos, it’s rough and insistent and protective and territorial and utterly desperate. Cecil whispers _mineminemine_ into the back of Carlos’s neck and digs his nails into his hips. Carlos bucks against him and cries out over and over again. Afterwards Cecil asks, frightened, if Carlos is okay, if he hurt him, if he hates him now, if he wants him to leave. Carlos kisses Cecil slow and insistently and assures him, even as they’re both groggy with sleep, that he loves him.

 

For the next month, Cecil will ask Carlos nervously if he still loves him.

The answer is always a calm, patient smile and a nod of the head.

 

Cecil has never hated himself more.

 

Carlos finds out after a train crash.

On his commute to work, Cecil is involved in a crash. A train collides with his car after coming out of virtually nowhere. No one in either the train or his vehicle was injured—a fact which a naïve Carlos had refused to believe.

Carlos crouches over Cecil, checking him furiously for any sign of injury, despite the fact that Cecil has not a scratch on him and they’ve both visited the hospital under Carlos’s insistence with no signs of internal damage. “It’s not possible,” Carlos repeats frantically, over and over again, refusing to believe the clear picture Cecil was painting for him.

“Carlos, chalk it up to good luck,” Cecil pleads. “It’s a miracle.”

“This town…this town doesn’t _have_ miracles, Cecil. This town is the opposite of a miracle. This town is a nightmare.”

Cecil stares at him, hurt and conflicted all at once. “Carlos. Please.”

“If we miss something, Cecil…if we miss just one thing,” Carlos says in a shaking voice that tears Cecil apart inside far worse than any train collision ever could, “You’ll die. You could die on me. You don’t want to die, do you Cecil?”

 _Yes_ rings through Cecil’s mind more than anything else. _Yes, yes, yes, Carlos, and I want you to die with me._

“Carlos, I’m fine. I promise I’m fine. Please don’t cry, please, please, please don’t cry.”

“Cecil, I don’t think you understand the _brevity_ of this situation,” Carlos cries. “Train crashes aren’t something you just _walk away_ from. This isn’t _right_. This town has _done_ something to you, and if I lose you, I don’t—I don’t—”

Cecil leans forward on his knees, taking Carlos’s face in his hands and kissing him all over anxiously. “Carlos, you’ll never lose me, I promise you won’t, I swear to god you won’t, I’m immortal, you can’t lose me, I swear I am, I swear to the angels I am, please just don’t cry, don’t ever cry.”

Carlos wraps his fingers tightly around Cecil’s wrists and pries them off his face. He leans back and stares at him with wide, frightened eyes. He rushes back as far as he can go on the bed without falling off, his whole body tremulous and shaking wildly. Cecil gapes at him helplessly, never having seen Carlos this way. He had sought desperately to comfort him, but had only succeeded in doing exactly the opposite.

“Carlos…” he whispers, reaching his hand forward to touch Carlos’s cheek. Carlos jerks away from him, staring at him now as one does something inhuman; something repulsive.

Carlos stares down at his feet before breaking into uncontrollable, heaving sobs. Cecil’s heart—if he had a heart—just about breaks in two and he shuffles forward, enveloping his arms around Carlos. Carlos fights him at first, but then allows him to hold him through the night, shaking violently against him and completely and exhaustingly inconsolable despite Cecil’s best efforts. He cries as if in pain and holds onto Cecil like if he lets go he’ll cease to exist.

 

Cecil calls in sick at work the next day. The shadows look toward their head hooded figure for permission to punish him, but the hood does nothing but shake its head. The shadows all understand. The shadows all understand Carlos.

 

Cecil sits across from Carlos at the breakfast bar the next morning, nudging a cup of coffee into his numb hands. Carlos stares at it with dull, swollen eyes and stuttering breath that is still labored from hours of endless crying and gasping for air.

He searches for something to say, something to tell a mortal. Something to tell a mortal whom he loves more than the endless void in the sky or his own precious town.

His train of thought is completely severed by the sharp cut of Carlos’s jaded voice, raspy and worn out from unfulfilling sleep and more than his fair share of screaming in pain.

“I’m going to leave one day, aren’t I. I’m going to leave one day and you’re not. I’m going to leave, but you’ll stay right here. Just like you always have. You’ll stay right here in Night Vale.”

Cecil stares as Carlos grips his coffee so tight it turns his knuckles white and sips it without an ounce of change in his expression. He stares at Carlos with his mouth open slightly and his golden tongue frozen to the inside of his mouth.

“You were wrong, Cecil,” Carlos says, lifting the mug to his lips. “I am going to lose you. Eventually.”

 

Cecil drives to Old Woman Josie’s house in a blur and cries into the shoulder of a sweater that he won’t remember irritated his skin.

 

Time goes on, and Carlos’s once youthful skin succumbs to cracks and wrinkles. His beautiful hair slowly thins and the black curls are swallowed whole by the grey. Cecil finds him one night, stooped over the sink and running his hand through his hair, more salt than pepper now. Carlos’s whole body is shaking just slightly and his eyes are full of nothing but pain and understanding. Cecil approaches him slowly and puts his arms around Carlos, around his stomach which was once flat and has now rounded out slightly and lays his head on a shoulder that is much bonier than it used to be. Carlos closes his eyes and leans into him.

“You’re beautiful,” Cecil whispers into Carlos’s ear. “Perfect.”

 

One day—( _soon. too soon._ )—Carlos falls. He falls while Cecil is gone at work and can’t get up.

Cecil runs to him and helps him up immediately, and finds himself having a much harder time than previous occurrences. He aids Carlos in walking him to his bed and knows, as much as he hates to admit it, that time is starting to run out.

 

“I’m dying, Cecil.”

“I know.”

“I’m fading, Cecil.”

“I know.”

“Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“You know where.”

 

Carlos falls asleep with his head on Cecil’s shoulder beneath the lights above the Arby’s murmuring “I love you” in an exhausted haze.

He never wakes up.

 

The world ends with flashes of lights and explosions and fire and decay. The world ends far after everything else has died away. Everything except Cecil and his radio station.

As he watches the world around him crumble into nothingness, he faintly remembers the shadows asking him if it was all worth it. If being the Voice of Night Vale was worth this pain and suffering and imminent turmoil.

Cecil remembers that his jaw shakes as he tells them, of course it was.

Of course it was worth it to just know the man who knew nothing and yet everything; to be graced by that smile that would never fully reveal itself.

Of course it was worth it to kiss stuttering lips and to hold shaking hands and to find beauty in greying hair and aging wrinkles.

Of course it was worth it, if only just to love a scientist who finally understood, as he still does, the lights above the Arby’s.

 

Cecil’s last real memory is Carlos’s last words.

In the front seat of Cecil’s old, eternal company car, with his head perched upon the Voice of Night Vale’s shoulder, Carlos had whispered, “I was wrong, Cecil.

I said that Night Vale had no miracles.

I was wrong.

Night Vale has you.”


End file.
